As God is my witness, this is not from the Onion. It's from an article in the St. Petersburg Times about a Tea Party summer camp supposedly being sponsored by the 912 Project, called the "Tampa Liberty School."
Behold, an example of Poe's Law in its purest possible form:
"'One example at Liberty: Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the 'banker' will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value.
'Some of the kids will fall for it,' Lukens said. 'Others kids will wise up.'
Another example: Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World).
Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility.
Still another example: Children will blow bubbles from a single container of soapy solution, and then pop each other's bubbles with squirt guns in an arrangement that mimics socialism. They are to count how many bubbles they pop. Then they will work with individual bottles of solution and pop their own bubbles.
'What they will find out is that you can do a lot more with individual freedom,' Lukens said."
My first thought: No way this is for real. It's so insane -- as Alex Pareene over at Salon says, it anticipates every possible joke you could make and beats you to it -- that it just cannot be anything other than brilliant satire.
Because if it isn't -- we're even worse off than I thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment